A taller screen and a sumptuous redesign for
the iconic smartphone, but Apple’s latest iPhone falls tantalizingly short of a
place on our A-List
It’s now been quite some time since an
iPhone last graced the peak of the PC & Tech Authority A-List. For almost
two years Samsung’s and HTC’s handsets have dominated, with the 4S not doing
much to further Apple’s cause. The iPhone 5 attempts to claw back that lost
ground with a bigger, higher-resolution screen, an even slimmer profile, and
further improvements to performance.
IPhone
5 weighs only 112g – lighter than the 4S by 28g, despite the extra height
necessary to accommodate the larger 4in display
That really is the big news with the iPhone
5, from a hardware perspective at least, and on the whole the changes are
successful. As we’ve come to expect from Apple, it’s beautifully made, and the
first thing that strikes you is its light weight. It weighs only 112g – lighter
than the 4S by 28g, despite the extra height necessary to accommodate the
larger 4in display. It also measures an astonishing 7.6mm thick.
This is largely thanks to the loss of the
rear glass panel, which is replaced by an aluminium chassis that feels cool and
ever-so-slightly rough to the touch.
We have one key reservation, though, and
this concerns the new, so-called Lightning connector, which reduces the old
21.3mm-wide, 30-pin connector to a more compact 8-pin design that’s 11.6mm
wide. There’s no speed benefit to this change for iPhone 5 owners – the current
Lightning connector is still based on USB 2 – but it renders all your old
iPhone accessories instantly absolete. Although adapter plugs are available
from Apple, they’re a steep $35 a throw.
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Details
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Price: 16GB, $799; 32GB, $899; 64GB; $999
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Supplier: www.apple.com
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The display
Despite this, the iPhone remains
technological jewellery of the finest sort, and the quality of the iPhone 5’s
4in Retina screen is beyond reproach. We measured its maximum brightness at
582cd/m2; deep dark blacks ensure an excellent contrast of 1058:1.
Although taller, the 640 x 1136 display measures the same across as the 4 and
4S, which means the pixel density remains a gloriously high 326ppi. Whether the
quality is better than the Samsung Galaxy S III’s is a matter of taste, with the
Galaxy providing a slightly more saturated look than the iPhone 5’s more muted
tones – but for our money, they’re neck and neck; it’s only the Galaxy S III’s
extra size that keeps it out in front.
4-inch
Retina display. It’s not just bigger. It’s just right.
A key point to note here is the aspect
ratio of the new display. After years of sticking doggedly to 4:3, Apple has at
last gone widescreen. The new ratio is slightly broader than 16:9, which means
you get the full widescreen movie experience with no letterboxing; existing
apps will need to be updated to take full advantage, however, with black bars
appearing at the top and bottom of the screen in apps not optimized for the
iPhone 5.
Camera and calls
Only small improvements have been made to
the iPhone 5’s rear camera. Apple has replaced the lens cover with a more
scratch-resistant “sapphire crystal” version, and you can now snap stills while
recording video, but the resolution for stills remains at 8 megapixels, as does
the digitally stabilised 1080p video. The iPhone 5 (along with its predecessor
the 4S) is still among the best in the business, though, and produces crisp,
colourful snaps that are easily a match for those from the Samsung Galaxy S
III.
Apple
has replaced the lens cover with a more scratch-resistant “sapphire crystal”
version
Surprisingly, Apple hasn’t added a burst
mode, instead plumping for the introduction of a panorama feature. This allows
you to capture broad landscapes with a sweep of the arm, and it’s commendably
easy to use. The results are disappointing, though: you need a steady hand or
pictures end up with distracting wobbles and kinks. The front camera receives a
bigger upgrade, moving from 640 x 480 to 1280 x 960, with video capture
increased to 720p at 24fps.
The iPhone is often lambasted for its call
quality, but our test calls made on the iPhone 5 were loud and clear at the
other end, even if they lacked depth and richness.
Performance
Much more impressive is the raw speed of
the iPhone 5, which introduces the new Apple A6 mobile processor. Once again,
Apple hasn’t run with the crowd here: the processor is a dual-core model,
rather than quad-core, and it clocks in at between 800MHz and 1.2GHz depending
on load, with 1GB of RAM to back it up.
That may not sound very impressive, yet it
was scorchingly fast throughout testing. In SunSpider, it pulled in a result of
932ms, the first phone we’ve encountered to limbo under the 1000ms barrier; in
Geekbench, a popular iOS benchmarking tool, it scored 1674 to the iPhone 4S’s
627.
Subjectively, it feels as smooth as every
iPhone we’ve used, with the front-end, web pages and games all running as
smoothly as expected. App launch times, already pretty snappy with the 4S, were
even quicker on the iPhone 5, and the camera exhibited no shutter lag at all.
Despite this, battery life hasn’t suffered
at all, with 60% remaining on the gauge after 24 hours. This is on a par with
the iPhone 5’s key rivals, and a big improvement on the 4S, which had only 30%
battery power remaining after the same test. (It is worth noting that our tests
don’t factor in a 4G connection, and we’d expect more battery drain when
connecting to 4G.)
Yet another performance boost is provided
through the phone’s 4G LTE radio, with support for both Telstra and Optus’
nascent 4G networks.
